Ten Years of TerraSAR-X—Scientific Results

Abstract

This special issue is a collection of papers addressing the scientific utilization of data acquired in the course of the TerraSAR-X mission. The articles deal with the mission itself, the accuracy of the products, with differential interferometry, and with applications in the domains cryosphere, oceans, wetlands, and urban areas. This editorial summarizes the content.

Satellite Earth Observation and National Data Regulation

“…This concern with a law on high grade data grew out of the German initiatives for high spatial resolution radar systems, implemented as a public-private partnership between the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and Airbus. Germany launched its TerraSAR-X satellite [22] in June 2007 followed by the almost identical TanDEM-X satellite in June 2010. Both satellites were equipped with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and the two satellites fly in close formation to collect SAR data of the Earth's surface.…”

Three- and Four-Dimensional Topographic Measurement and Validation

“…In Dragon-1 and Dragon-2, the focus was on DEM generation and surface motion estimation with medium resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Since Dragon-3, SAR datasets of high spatial and temporal resolution (TerraSAR-X, COSMO-SkyMed) were made available, and nowadays, thanks to the availability of dense time series from Sentinel-1, accurate and frequent global coverage has become a reality [1][2][3][4][5]. Moreover, the capabilities of SAR-based Earth Observation are on their way for a further improvement in the very near future, thanks to new low-frequency Missions, such as BIOMASS and ROSE-L, that will grant enhanced wave penetration in natural media, such as forests and ice [6,7].…”